Johannesburg - The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) is asking the City of Johannesburg residents to participate in a survey to determine the impact of the July property rates increase had on property owners.
Julius Kleynhans - Outa executive manager social innovation - said his organisation was running a public survey to see how property owners in the City of Johannesburg have been affected by the property valuation increase on top of the 2% property rates increase.
“In our efforts to determine the extent of the impact the July 2023 property rates increase has on property owners, we have launched a survey to see how many objections have been resolved,” Kleynhans said.
He said Outa believes the City may have inaccurately assessed property values and disregarded objections, saying to encourage fairness, Outa encouraged residents to participate in their survey whether the property owner had objected to the new valuation or not.
Outa understands that some property owners only received their property valuation notices at the end of May 2023, after the objection deadline date of the General Valuation Roll 2023 (GVR2023), saying because of the delayed notice, these residents weren’t afforded an opportunity to object within the GVR2023 public participation process.
Outa recently wrote to the City, asking it to delay the increases on those properties where the valuation was disputed, until the objection process had been finalised, as this would be reasonable and fair.
Kleynhans said, to date, the City had not responded to this letter.
“According to the City’s media response, around 40 000 property owners have objected to the valuation roll. We believe that these residents' objections should be concluded before accurate new rates can be charged to their bills,” Kleynhans said.
In its letter, Outa raised its concern over the turnaround time by the City to address objections before the new rates were applied, as well as the credibility of the method used to determine the rates of 934 652 properties within the City.
Outa would collate the information from the survey responses to better understand the impact of the valuations and rates on residents. He said that would help Outa determine its next steps with regard to ensuring that this process was transparent and fair.
“Various community organisations have engaged with Outa over recent months, asking Outa to assist with service delivery and infrastructure problems in the City of Johannesburg. Outa is working on plans to make it easier for Johannesburg community organisations to actively participate in the business of their metro,” Kleynhans said.